Can I trick Google into looking more favourably upon me?

[IanB]

Ian,

You could start with the info page as a popup and place the link to a song where one exists on that layer; I'd guess you're headed in that direction. A cleaner way would be to make the popups 'class' layers (at least that's what I call them). That way you can have a single return link that stops the song and closes the info layer (cleanly), even when a video is playing! Where a song is not available you simply omit the note symbol.

Take a look here: https://initiostar.co.uk/demo/Waterways/index.htm || Attachment 130338

Gary

Gary

I'll have a look at your suggestion and a good think when I've completely woken up. In the meantime here's a link to the (ever changing) test site which is getting close to what I'm aiming for.

https://www.waterwaysongs.info/Test/

Only the A menu works and there's just the one variant so far.

I've used a transparent button (with the javascript link to play the appropriate song) on the song information popups. This goes over the play button which would otherwise be playing nothing or the wrong song. A bit of a botch but it seems to work.

I'd be interested in your comments.

Cheers
Ian

[Initiostar]

Gary

I'll have a look at your suggestion and a good think when I've completely woken up. In the meantime here's a link to the (ever changing) test site which is getting close to what I'm aiming for.

https://www.waterwaysongs.info/Test/

Only the A menu works and there's just the one variant so far.

I've used a transparent button (with the javascript link to play the appropriate song) on the song information popups. This goes over the play button which would otherwise be playing nothing or the wrong song. A bit of a botch but it seems to work.

I'd be interested in your comments.

Cheers
Ian

Great start Ian,

You have a design question to answer before you head much further: a visitor can play a song and scroll through the other info popups while that song is playing (current status), or you could have the info popup retained until the the visitor stops the song (which is the mod I added in my last example - https://initiostar.co.uk/demo/Waterways/index.htm).

The route you choose dictates the logic that follows. In my example, I have reverted to giving objects on each popup a unique class e.g. songA1, songA2, songB1 - it is easier to manage everything as a javascript link, versus trying to use a mixture of Xara popup links and javascript at the same time.

As an aside, I have simply used another link on the popup to start the song, whereas you have uses the original play button (with the transparent overlay). The original play link was designed as an 'in-play' link which means you could pause the song and restart it from the paused position, rather than from the beginning.

In the later example I included the video code that you should add, otherwise at present you start a song, then start a video and have both audio tracks playing at the same time. The video code is now included - you give the video placeholder an id (as per the code) and then play, pause and stop functions can be applied in conjunction with the audio controls to pause the song audio while the video is playing - you can see this in action in the example when you pick the first song.

Once you settle on a way forward for the design question, it will be easier to sort out the logic that follows.

Gary

Jukebox-Waterways.xar

[IanB]

You have a design question to answer before you head much further: a visitor can play a song and scroll through the other info popups while that song is playing (current status), or you could have the info popup retained until the the visitor stops the song (which is the mod I added in my last example - https://initiostar.co.uk/demo/Waterways/index.htm).

Once you settle on a way forward for the design question, it will be easier to sort out the logic that follows.

Gary

Jukebox-Waterways.xar

Hi Gary

Having spent some time using your excellent audio player I, as you indicate, now have to make some decisions about how I want users to navigate the site. Though the ability to play the songs in a 'jukebox' with a simple but attractive interface has its appeal, there are many song pages with no audio files. Some pages have lots of additional information and some just a little. Many have video files, and some have multiple audio or video files. I am going to take some time to think about how to progress. Having the song information on popups and using javascript I don't fully understand might lead to problems I may not be able to solve. Having the songs on separate pages with just a simple audio player is something I can cope with and allows navigation through the songs alphabetically as users can do now. It gives me flexibility. I could see some of the SongMenu pages having 40 or more extensive popups! Separate pages may be better for loading times as well.

The audio player Menu design is certainly something I will utilise but the rest of the my site needs a good thinking about before I move forward in whatever direction seems best.

Thank you very much for all the help you have given with your audio player.

Ian

[Initiostar]

Ian,

Best wishes for whatever direction you take - a song per page is simple and I'm sure will work well for both mobile and desktop,

Gary

[Initiostar]

Ian,

Best wishes for whatever direction you take - a song per page is simple and I'm sure will work well for both mobile and desktop,

Gary

Ian, as a footnote this is the menu grid structure on its own (no code in sight) - Mobile Menu.xar

It has a song menu page that can link to each individual song page (where of course you can place any content). Each song page has a link back to the song menu page. This keeps it simple and avoids replicating the the song menu on each song page.

Two variants is enough; you can use text styles and share with variants to help with updates and formatting for text & graphics, copy and paste placeholders for songs and videos.

Might help with your thoughts,

Gary

[IanB]

Thanks Gary

Though there are still many decisions to be made I'm tinkering with the song menus which currently look like this :



Not a million miles away from your Jukebox menus.

Thanks again for your help and suggestions.

Ian